Two-Wave Strategic Baseline Suspension

In Simple Words

Imagine starting a public street survey and realizing people are hesitant to talk to strangers. You temporarily stop surveying, form an official partnership with a major trusted local bank, and reopen your survey desks right inside the bank's lobby branches where customers already feel secure.

Research question

Field experiments launched independently in international settings often encounter logistical hurdles, participant suspicion, and legal recruitment constraints. Pausing intake to integrate formal commercial partners builds institutional legitimacy and improves sampling infrastructure.

Participants

8,248 initial migrant recruits across Wave 1 (Sept–Nov 2018) and Wave 2 (Feb–Aug 2019) in the UAE.

Study Design

Phased baseline rollout pausing field intake to formalize a research partnership with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and UAE Exchange.

Results

Wave 2 branch co-location resolved baseline refusal challenges, allowing enrollment to reach 8,248 total migrants and successfully retaining 4,458 participants.

Takeaway

Pause early-stage field intake to secure formal commercial partner integration when facing participant trust or logistical bottlenecks.

Read alongside the research

Plain-English glossary

Original explanations, informed by the references below. Examples are illustrations, not data from the studies above. The research text stays unchanged.

Baseline

The starting measurements in a study. Researchers use these to compare what participants were like at the start with what happens later.

ExampleBefore a training programme starts, researchers measure workers’ earnings. That first measurement is the baseline.

GET-IT glossary · Baseline characteristics ↗Read more about baseline →

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